Imagine sitting in front of Henry Waxman and explaining that the
man who accuses you of taking an illicit substance — a
demonstrably creepy man who was your trainer for years — is
lying.
Furthermore, imagine explaining that you didn’t really know
anything about his drug promotion, even though you admit that he
was sticking a needle into your best friend and your wife. Imagine
that Congress was deeply interested in whether or not you attended
a party at Jose Canseco’s house in 1998. Imagine that at forty two
years old you hit the third peak of your major-league pitching
career with a 1.87 ERA.
Wait, you can’t imagine that. It’s too unbelievable. You’d have
to be on drugs or something.
The latest round of congressional hearings, on the problem of
anabolic steroids and HGH use in baseball, was justified as a
follow-up to former senator Mitchell’s report on player drug use.
In reality it was a spectacle that allowed Congress to become the
backdrop for the ongoing public fight between Roger Clemens and
Brian McNamee — two men who don’t deserve the limelight our tax
dollars affords them.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Waxman seemed aware of the
farce. He indicating in his opening statement that he’d thought of
canceling the hearings and merely issuing an outline of the
Committee’s findings. Instead, he chose to endure a few extra hours
of simultaneous CSPAN and ESPN coverage.
ROGER CLEMENS’S ACCOUNT, that he never took steroids or HGH, even
though two of the people closest to him in his life took them under
the direction of his trainer, and that said trainer has every legal
reason to tell the truth, beggars belief.
During the hearings, when Clemens was asked whether his friend
Andy Pettitte was telling the truth when he testified that he and
Clemens had discussed steroid and HGH use, Clemens said that Andy
was an honest person. Clemens then lamely claimed that Pettitte had
“misheard” Clemens while he (Clemens) talked about how older people
“improved their quality of life” by using HGH. That’s one hanging
curve any competent prosecutor would hit out of the park.
Yet it is easy to impugn the credibility of his accuser. Brian
McNamee, in his opening statement, baldly declared, “I told the
investigators I injected three people — two of whom I know
confirmed my account. The third is sitting at this table.” He has
not always been known for straight shooting.
McNamee received his Ph.D. from a diploma mill. Though he is
former NYPD officer with a record of making many big-time arrests,
he lied to Florida detectives during a 2001 rape investigation and
subsequently ducked his legal bills. As recently as 2006, he told
reporters at Sports Illustrated that he was not involved
with steroids in baseball.
Republican members of the Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform embarrassed themselves, putting up heroic action shots of
Clemens pitching, and gingerly asking, “How hard do you work?”
(Anyone know an anabolic steroid user who isn’t always in the gym?)
And Democrats, following Wexler were so pompous in their
questioning that they almost made the pitcher look sympathetic. “I
want kids to know there are no shortcuts,” Clemens piously said in
his own defense.
The only person who came away looking good was the absent Andy
Pettitte, whom everyone praised as an honest, decent, and
forthright man. An admitted-cheater, of course, but like most
caught-out politicians, he had “taken responsibility” for his
mistakes.
ONE OF THE oddest aspects this story is the media’s
junior-high-like focus on the friendship between Clemens and
Pettitte. On ESPN radio’s “Mike and Mike in the Morning,” Mike
Greenburg commented on the “Shakesperean” quality of the drama
between the two pitchers, before inaptly referencing Iago and
Othello.
Before anyone could poison Pettitte’s wife or steal a beloved
handkerchief, Clemens stated (again probably falsely) that “Andy
Pettitte is my friend. He was my friend before this. He’ll be my
friend after this. And again, I think he has misheard.”
Unfortunately for baseball, fans and reporters are talking about
Jose Canseco’s tasty barbecue and needles pricking the belly-button
of the most famous pitcher of the last generation rather than the
fact that pitchers and catchers have reported for spring training,
or that every team in the exciting National League East has
improved, or that baseball’s playoffs recently enjoyed their
highest ever national television ratings.
Every major player will have to field at least one question
about this during their warmup season in Florida and Arizona.
Neither the Mitchell Report nor the latest hearings will close the
door on the Steroids Era in baseball.
